


Out of the Woods

by didoandis



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Fix-It, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Hurt/Comfort, I'm British so's my spelling, Imprisonment, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, Kidnapping, M/M, Not Beta Read, Post-Episode: S01E06 Rare Species, Pre-Slash, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Threats of Violence, it doesn't happen though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:35:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23477080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/didoandis/pseuds/didoandis
Summary: Jaskier is on the coast, likely in a court or a tavern, or in someone’s bed, or being chased from someone’s bed. He’s singing or screwing or drinking. He’s safe. When Geralt allowed himself to think of the bard, that’s what he imagined.Geralt goes a little out of his way to attack a Nilfgaardian patrol, and finds something entirely unexpected.Yes, it's Jaskier.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 88
Kudos: 1352





	Out of the Woods

**Author's Note:**

> Based purely on the TV series and some limited googling. 
> 
> Stay safe out there.

Ordinarily, Geralt avoids the Nilfgaardian patrols entirely. It’s not hard: they’re spread out through the country, hunting for Ciri and stoking the fires of their reputation, and while the communities they hit will for ever after tell stories of the way they swept out of the silence and rained destruction down, those stories are told by humans. Geralt can smell their armour and their fanaticism from a mile away. 

At the moment, though, Ciri is on the other side of the mountains with Yennefer. He had to get out of Yennefer’s way for a while before one of them killed the other. Ciri doesn’t need that kind of tension. So there isn’t any harm in a bit of misdirection. He doesn’t seek them out, but if he catches their scent he’ll take the opportunity to lead them astray. They think Ciri is with him, so they’ll send reinforcements to wherever he was seen last, which is currently far away from her. 

Yesterday he cleared a lake of drowners, collected his coin, and spent the night holed up in some herdsman’s summer cabin at the foot of the mountains. This morning he took the opportunity to wash, clean his armour and sharpen his swords. He’s only been riding a couple of hours since noon, which in this season means it’s practically dusk. 

He smells the soldiers just as the shadows are lengthening between the trees and he’s starting to think about finding a place to stop for the night. Smoke, blood, fear, and that burning desperate true belief that marks them out from all other wanderers in the woods. Not more than a mile off. He could pass by, but if he hits the place that’s ten or twenty fewer soldiers sent after him or Ciri later, and that’s worth the detour. 

When he gets close he dismounts and tethers Roach to a tree before making a slow, quiet circuit of their encampment. They’re mostly huddled by the fire, two or three more standing guard, warier than he’s used to. Usually they’re fat on their latest pillage, smug in their sense of righteousness, sloppy. But these men seem a little harder than that, a little more anxious and careful. He shrugs it off as a puzzle not worth solving. 

Aside from the guards and the soldiers round the fire, there’s five horses hobbled at one edge of the clearing, and four or five men slumped next to them. They’re in rags, hands tied; they have the stink of defeat and despair. Geralt guesses they were spared in the latest massacre and enslaved, perhaps to do the shit jobs the Nilfgaardians consider themselves above, perhaps to help drag the heavy-looking covered wagon at the north of the camp, perhaps for food. It’s going to be a hard winter, and he wouldn’t put it past them. 

He makes the circuit once more, evaluating, and then attacks, casting _Igni_ on the fire with strength enough for it to set one or two alight. The rest scatter, panicked by the flames and the screaming, and it’s not too hard, after that, to dance in and out of the shadows as they wheel around trying to find the threat. They put up more of a fight than he’s accustomed to – in his experience, once the spell of their superiority is broken they tend to give up and hope for mercy – but all the same. Even a dozen soldiers is no match for a witcher. He’s breathing a little harder at the end of the ten or so minutes it takes to cut the last one down, but unharmed. 

He wipes his sword on the grass next to the final man – the captain, probably, he hung back till he was sure there was no one else left to fight – spits and makes his way over to the bound slaves. He takes a knife from one of the dead soldiers, cuts the bonds of the first slave he comes to and then passes him the blade. 

The man stares at him blankly. Geralt sighs. 

“Free the others,” he says. “Then fuck off. Quickly.” He pauses, then adds, “take the horses.” Poor bastards are owed some recompense. He wonders how far they’ve been dragged across the Continent. “If anyone asks, tell them the witcher freed you.” 

The prisoner seems to get it, sawing enthusiastically if messily at the rope tying the next man along. One of them says, “they were afraid you’d come. We never thought you would, though.” 

Geralt hunkers down to peer at him. He’s a little surprised. This is only the fourth patrol he’s struck in the last ten days or so, and he doesn’t tend to leave survivors. He didn’t think word would have spread yet. Perhaps that means there were more soldiers, scouts, who came back after he was done. Perhaps they have other means of tracking their patrols. 

“What did they say?” 

The man who spoke looks to be the youngest among the captives, certainly the bravest. He doesn’t quite meet Geralt’s eyes, so he has some sense. “Just that they should be careful, given the importance of their cargo. Watch for the witcher.” 

Huh. Geralt stands, feels his eyes drawn to the wagon on his right. What horrific thing could they be transporting? Yen told him of the dark magic at Sodden, the human bombs, the steel worms that turned friend to enemy. Ciri told him of Mousesack’s death and the doppler that came after. He walks towards it, not afraid, but careful. Behind him, he hears the men scramble to standing, hears them untie the horses and start moving. That’s five voices to carry the story, spread the rumour, lure Nilfgaard to this lonely forest where Ciri isn’t. A good day’s work. Better if he slays whatever beast they’ve trapped as a weapon. 

The stink hits as soon as he lifts the canvas at the back of the wagon. Blood and shit and piss and pain. Nothing monstrous, though; the smell is entirely human. He leaps up to squat on the end of the wagon bed, sword in one hand, the other lifting the covering back further. The sun has gone entirely, and while his night vision is excellent, there’s no light at all. He stands to cut the roof away, let the moon in so he can figure out what he’s dealing with. 

What he’s dealing with, it turns out, is a cage, pushed to the back of the wagon. It’s sturdy, tempered oak for the top and bottom, iron bars all round, a heavy padlock on the door at the front. Now the moon is shining he can see what’s inside plainly: on one side a mess of straw and excrement, pushed away, he supposes, in a vain attempt to keep the other half clean to lie on. There is someone lying there, facing away, curled into as small a shape as the human frame can manage. He’s naked; Geralt can see the vertebrae sharp beneath the skin, shadows of old and new bruises, old and new cuts and scrapes. He wonders who the poor sod is, and what he did that made the Empire so keen to hold him. 

Still, his enemy’s enemy might be his friend, and he’ll take any information he can get. He leaves the wagon, returns to the last man he killed, the one who seemed to be in charge, and finds the key to the lock in his pocket. He feels a little… off. Tiredness, or the fade of adrenaline. There’s an unease in his gut he doesn’t understand, his senses telling him he’s missing something. He shakes his head. Pauses to consider, and rifles through a couple of packs until he finds two waterskins, a couple of blankets, some spare clothes. He leaves his gatherings on the ground by the wagon, and shuffles inside towards the cage. 

This time the stench has been joined by the sour smell of fear, a heartbeat straining too fast in a weak body. The man hasn’t moved, but he’s awake and trembling. Geralt knows he’s not great at reassurance, he’s been told often enough, but he’ll try. 

“It’s all right,” he says. “I’m not with them.” 

To his surprise, the shudders shaking the man only increase. He hears muttering: _oh, no. no no no no oh no…_

The uneasy feeling in his gut swells. He knows that voice. But. It’s not possible. 

In the cage, the man shifts, rolls to his hands and knees and then collapses back to sitting as his trembling limbs give away. His hands are tied in front of him. His hair is matted, curling almost to his shoulders; a patchy beard covers his cheeks. One eye is swollen shut. The other stares, bloodshot but still clearly a brighter shade of blue.

Geralt can’t breathe, all of a sudden. He lurches forwards and the man in the cage pulls away, his back hitting the bars with a dull thud. 

“Jaskier,” he says, stilling, one hand outstretched. “It’s me.” 

Jaskier shakes his head, softly at first and then with violence. It reverberates off the bars and Geralt needs, more than anything in the world, to make it stop. His fingers stumble on the lock, shake as he gets the door open. He has to pull Jaskier out by his bound hands; he doesn’t resist, but he doesn’t help either. They end up kneeling, staring at each other. 

Jaskier is on the coast, likely in a court or a tavern, or in someone’s bed, or being chased from someone’s bed. He’s singing or screwing or drinking. He’s _safe_. When Geralt allowed himself to think of the bard, that’s what he imagined. 

But Jaskier’s in front of him. He’s just pulled Jaskier from a cage in a wagon guarded by a patrol of armed and watchful Nilfgaardians. He stinks, of blood and vomit and shit. He’s covered in contusions and marks, some old, some new. And he’s so thin Geralt can count his bones, can see that he’s no reserves left at all. This is the work of weeks, maybe months. All the time Geralt was refusing to think of him, or thinking of him happy, he’d been like this. Trapped, hurt, alone. 

“Jaskier,” he says again. 

Jaskier closes his one good eye. He licks his lips, speaks so softly that Geralt has to strain to hear him. “I thought I’d have more time,” he whispers, his voice as cracked and broken as the rest of him. It makes no sense. Geralt reaches to touch him again, sees him flinch.

He doesn’t know what to do. Jaskier has every right to hate him, given how they parted. But in the circumstances… He can’t understand why he’s so afraid.

He edges backwards, resting one hand on Jaskier’s bound wrists, and Jaskier comes with him, inch by inch, as if he can’t even work up the strength to resist. He wants to, Geralt can read it in every sharp trembling muscle. But he doesn’t. 

He brings Jaskier with him until he’s sitting on the edge of the wagon, head bowed. Geralt stands to find the water and clothes he brought and as he turns away, Jaskier moves with a sudden manic energy. “It’s been fun!” he says, bright and high, “but I really must be going―” and he slides forward. Geralt’s not fast enough. The minute he straightens, he collapses, and Geralt can’t reach him in time to stop the back of his head connecting with the board on his way down.

One more injury to add to the multitude. One more hurt Geralt didn’t protect him from. 

He lifts the lax body up, lays him back down on the wagon bed. He is, for once, at a loss. He needs to get Jaskier safe, clothed, warm, fed. He needs to tend to his wounds before the infection he can already sense sets in harder. But there’s so much, he doesn’t know where to start. And he can’t stay here, doesn’t want to be near the smell or sight of the cage for a moment longer. 

Safety first, then. He’ll return to the cabin; it’s the only shelter he’s sure of, and at least there he can light a fire, boil water, let Jaskier rest on something other than the frozen ground. He fetches the clothes he took from the soldier’s pack, pulls hose and shirt over Jaskier’s sparse flesh and swaddles him in blankets. He rifles through the soldiers’ baggage for food and bandages and salves and any other field supplies he can muster. And then he lifts Jaskier, who barely seems to have any weight in him at all, and carries him to Roach to start the slow walk back. 

Jaskier never stirs at all. 

It’s a hard journey, hours spent retracing his steps in the darkness. The wind is biting. There’s snow coming, he can taste it, and he pushes harder. He doesn’t want to be outside when it starts to fall. Roach’s breath comes in gusts, and she keeps shaking her head at him unhappily. Jaskier’s hanging limp over her back, and while she’s used to carrying monsters something about it seems to unnerve her. It’s certainly unnerving Geralt, listening to the slow, slow beat of the bard’s heart. He keeps thinking of how he almost kept to his path, how he almost walked away and left Jaskier. Hurt, trapped, alone. He didn’t know. 

The shepherd’s cabin is sturdy enough: a single room with a straw mattress on a ledge on one side, a hearth on the other, a rough table and chairs. Outside there’s stacked firewood, a muddle of tools, and a stream not far off. It’s not well insulated – though someone has stuffed wool in the cracks of the boards – but it’s better than the alternative. Geralt pulls the furs from the bed on to the floor, and lays Jaskier down on top of them, closer to the hearth and the lamp on the table. He hasn’t moved at all. Geralt sets the fire, and risks leaving him there while he fetches water to fill the cauldron set above the hearth. When he gets back, he puts the water on to boil, and unpacks the salves and bandages he took. He rips up a shirt for rags, and lights the lamp. Dawn will come in a few hours, but he doesn’t want to wait any longer. 

He starts with Jaskier’s face, hoping that he’ll sleep through this. It’s mostly dirt there, aside from the black eye and traces of blood from where he bit his tongue or lips. The rest of him is worse: lines of scarred and scabbed and fresh cuts on his back, from a knife or a whip. Layers of bruises, everywhere, the marks of fists and boots and clubs. Thick welts around his wrist where the ties have dug in, that need to be washed and washed again to get the dirt and rope fragments out of his flesh. His feet are the worst. At some point they must have made him walk barefoot. The skin on his soles is torn and blistered. Geralt cleans till the water goes muddy and sour, covers the wounds with poultices, wraps bandages. 

When he’s done, he sits back, feeling a little sick but mostly puzzled. Because it’s all so – superficial. No cuts that needed stitching, even. Designed to hurt, and scare, but not to damage. They held back from anything that would cause permanent harm. They were careful. Why were they so careful? Where were they going? 

Below him, Jaskier gasps and wakes. One eyelid lifts, and blinks. At first Geralt sees confusion but it’s immediately replaced with a wave of grief so strong it’s like a physical blow. 

“Ah, fuck,” Jaskier says. “It’s started, then.”

Geralt blinks back at him. “Jaskier. It’s me.” 

Jaskier pushes himself up to sitting, hissing at the strain on his wrists, and looks around. “Oh, I see,” he says. “It’s the cabin from outside Novigrad isn’t it, when we got caught in that hailstorm. I didn’t know I remembered it so well. It’s very good.” He runs one hand over the bandages around his chest, pulls his legs towards him. “This is a nice touch, but not that realistic, you know, I think I can count on one finger the times Geralt patched me up. The other way round, well.” He stands, still mostly naked, and Geralt doesn’t realise until he’s nearly at the door that he’s trying to _leave_. 

Geralt gets to the door first, of course, and leans against it. “Jaskier,” he says again, but he’s not sure what else to say. He couldn’t detect any fever, he doesn’t think the man’s hallucinating. “You’re safe here.” 

Jaskier sighs. This time when his knees buckle, Geralt’s ready; he catches him against his chest, and turns them back towards the bed. Jaskier goes willingly enough, his feet dragging a little on the floor. “It’s not going to work,” he says, as Geralt deposits him on the mattress. He’s determinedly not looking anywhere near Geralt’s face. “I’d love this to be real. I would. But I know it’s not.” 

“It’s real,” Geralt says. “Jaskier, what’s going on?”

Jaskier pats him gently on his chest. “Don’t worry, figment,” he murmurs. “I don’t blame you.”

He rolls over into the bedding, wraps himself up under the furs, facing the wall. 

Geralt says, “the cabin in Novigrad was smaller. And there was a goat. It ate your shirt.”

“Then I’m glad you’ve decided to spare us the goat this time,” Jaskier says. He’s holding himself very still. 

“I was hunting the soldiers. I didn’t know you were there. If I’d known…”

“What?” Jaskier asks. He turns himself back over, wincing, and glares. “The true Geralt would have passed by, he’s made his feelings pretty clear on that. So obviously _you_ swoop in to save me, in the hope that I’ll tell you everything I know about him. Which is very bad storytelling, because why would I tell someone what I know about them? They already know about themselves.” 

Geralt blinks while he tries to parse that. He’s not sure he gets the detail, but he’s clear on the central point. Jaskier thinks this is a trick, or a dream. Which is… unhelpful, but perhaps not surprising. “You should rest,” he says, eventually. 

“A sleep within a vision,” Jaskier says. “Interesting. Well, if that’s what comes next, why not. I can’t say I’m eager to get the part where you start hurting me again.” He blinks, still wary, but clearly exhausted. Geralt can sense what it’s costing him to stay awake. 

He says, “I won’t hurt you.”

“That’s funny,” Jaskier says, and pulls the covers tighter around himself. “Shouldn’t you know you already did?” 

And while Geralt tries to decide on his answer to that, Jaskier falls asleep.

Geralt hopes things will get better in the morning, after Jaskier has rested. 

They don’t.

Jaskier doesn’t talk, much, which is unsettling all by itself. He doesn’t try to run again, just lies on the bed, one eye watching Geralt as he moves around the cabin, preparing food, checking his stocks, sharpening his swords. 

“You can’t deny it’s a lot like the cabin in Novigrad,” Jaskier says eventually. “You’re doing exactly the same things in the exact same order.”

“It’s the right order,” Geralt points out.

“Add some variety,” Jaskier says. “Go wild.” His tone is casual, but there’s something in it Geralt doesn’t understand. Like it’s a test.

“Are you hungry?” he asks instead. “Thirsty?”

Jaskier shakes his head. It’s probably a lie, but if he doesn’t trust Geralt, he wouldn’t trust the food or drink either, Geralt supposes. He takes some hardtack from his saddlebag anyway, leaves it close enough to the bed to reach. 

When he next looks, Jaskier’s sleeping again, or pretending to. But the hardtack is gone. 

It’s a long day. 

Geralt tries, he really does. He talks more than is comfortable; reminisces about other times Jaskier’s got into trouble, other times they’ve had to wait out a storm, or hide from pursuit. He keeps waiting for Jaskier to jump in, outraged, rejecting his version of events, putting his own spin on the story. He can almost hear him doing it: “I was _not_ slow, you directed the beast at me on purpose… How was I meant to know she was his wife?… That’s what you get for trying to hunt a kikimora when you only have two hours of daylight…” But Jaskier just lies there, pained, and listens without saying a word. Once, Geralt catches him pressing his hand over his face, and is fairly sure he’s trying not to cry. But he doesn’t comment on it, and the moment passes. 

He doesn’t tell Jaskier where he’s been, mention Ciri or Nilfgaard. He doesn’t talk about what happened the last time they met. He’s not sure how. And Jaskier doesn’t bring it up again either. 

He doesn’t sleep that night; he meditates, for a few hours, till he’s brought out of it by a noise that he eventually realises is Jaskier, caught in a nightmare, whimpering softly. He moves over to him, touches his shoulder gently. 

Jaskier wakes, blinks, and there’s such naked relief in his face that Geralt finds himself smiling in return – until it’s like a shutter comes down, and Jaskier goes blank and scared again, and turns away. 

Geralt has no idea what to do, what to say, how to fix this. 

Dawn on the second day is bright, the air sharp. The snow came overnight, but the skies have cleared by the time Geralt goes to fetch more water. He makes porridge. Jaskier holds the bowl in shaking hands, then lets hunger get the better of him and eats. He looks at Geralt after, a little more alert, a challenge in every tense line of his body. 

“So what’s the plan, figment? Lull me into a false sense of security before the pain starts up? Hope I’ll somehow say something useful?”

“I’m real,” Geralt says. He gets up from the table, crouches in front of the bed, as if getting closer will be more persuasive. 

“You’re not,” Jaskier says. “But I’m starting to think you’re not the mage either. _Fuck_.” He throws the bowl across the room, a harsh clattering sound in the silence, and Geralt winces. 

“Why’s that bad?” he asks. 

Jaskier shrugs. “If I must choose between a trick and madness, I’d rather it not be madness,” he says. “If I’m mad, it’s already too late, do you see? Even if someone did come, there’d be no saving me.” 

“I came,” Geralt says. “I saved you.” He scowls; he’s no knight in shining armour, but he knows Jaskier used to think so.

Jaskier just laughs a little, runs his hand over his face. “Gods, this itches,” he says.

“I could shave it for you,” Geralt says. “If you like.”

He’s greeted with an incredulous look and then a sigh. “Why not,” Jaskier says eventually. “If I’m deep in the grip of my own delusion, I’ve nothing to lose by falling further, have I? And it would be nice to feel like myself again.”

Geralt goes to get his razor, the soap, a bowl of water. He kneels in front of Jaskier, who tilts his head back. This close, Geralt can see his pulse thrum in his neck. There’s grey in the stubble of his beard. His one open eye is very blue. 

“Do you remember,” Geralt says, as he makes the first careful stroke, “doing this for me after the drowner broke my hand? I couldn’t even hold the soap and you knew, I think, how angry it made me, and you—”

Jaskier puts both hands against his chest, shoves, and for all his strength Geralt can’t stop himself lurching back a little. 

“I was _there_ ,” Jaskier hisses, “for every damn minute of the years that you seem to think I’ve forgotten. These are old stories, figment, they reek of the dust they were buried in. And anyway it hardly matters since they all end the same way, don’t they? With the blessing Geralt always wanted. _I came_ , he says, _I saved you_ , like the mountain never happened.”

Geralt tastes despair, cold on his tongue. For the first time he lets himself wonder if he’s going to get through this; if Jaskier has already gone too far to hear him. The words catch in his throat, but he pulls them one by one out into the world anyway. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I was angry. I was wrong. I wanted to find you, but I thought you wouldn’t want to be found, and then… Well, then Cintra happened. But I should have come looking.” 

He pauses. Jaskier’s gone very still. “I should have known better after all those years,” he says. He smiles, a little. “Jaskier, I’ve regretted what I said since the minute you walked away from me.” 

Their eyes meet. Jaskier’s has gone wide, bright with tears, and for a second Geralt allows himself to hope.

And then Jaskier grabs for his wrist, twisting, and tries to angle the razor into Geralt’s throat. 

Despite the shock, Geralt’s still stronger, and faster – he throws it across the room, seizes Jaskier’s hands, his bleeding fingers. 

“Gods damn you,” Jaskier cries out, furious and pained, thumping his fists weakly against Geralt’s chest. “This is my head, shouldn’t that give me an advantage?”

Geralt holds him, pulls him closer. He doesn’t think he’s breathed in the last minute. He can feel blood seeping into his shirt, along with Jaskier’s tears. He strokes one hand up and down his back, as if Jaskier’s a frightened animal, as if he can soothe him. 

“It would be so much easier,” Jaskier says, after some time passes, “if you stopped pretending.” His voice is low, hopeless. He leans back in Geralt’s arms, his face blank again. 

“What am I pretending?”

“You know,” Jaskier says. He seems a little calmer, but he’s still looking at Geralt the same way he’s been looking at him since the wagon. Like he wishes he was safe, but can’t believe it. “That you like me. That you care. Honestly, and I may well come to regret this, but I’d rather you were the mage and you just got on with the torture. I don’t know what game you’re playing but it’s not. Going. To _work_.” 

Geralt looks at Jaskier, who looks back at him. Unhappy, and uncertain, and utterly convinced that Geralt isn’t real, because the real Geralt abandoned him on the side of a mountain, threw him out of his life with the harshest words he could muster. 

He makes the sign for _Axii_ because he can’t stand to see Jaskier looking like that at him for a second longer. Jaskier slumps forward with a small exhale of sour-smelling breath. 

After a while, Geralt fetches the razor and finishes shaving him. Then he carefully takes the razor, and his swords, and his spare knives, and the meat cleaver, and the axe for the wood, and dumps them on the porch. He barricades the door from the outside so no one can get in, and no one can get out, and then uses the xenovox to call Yennefer. 

Predictably, she’s not happy at the interruption. Equally predictably, she scowls and agrees to help when he stumbles through an explanation, and arrives not half an hour later, which is hasty, for her. She’s dressed all in black, though without some of her usual flourishes. She looks beautiful, like she always does, but he knows better to say so. 

After she catches him up with news of Ciri and he goes over where and how he found the bard, she stands with one hand on Jaskier’s forehead for what seems like a long time, but is probably only minutes. When she moves away she stumbles slightly, holds up a palm to reject Geralt’s move forward. “I’m fine,” she says. “It’s a mess in there.”

“What kind of a mess?”

“Pain, hunger, not enough sleep,” she says, shaking her head. “Beatings when he made a noise, when he was too quiet. Too cold to ever let him fully rest.” She pauses. “They were taking him to Fringilla, the Emperor’s pet mage, but they weren’t sure where she was. Just as well. She’d have ripped his mind apart to get any information he possessed. They told him that was what he had to look forward to, often. No wonder he can’t quite trust the rescue.” Her tone is matter of fact, but he can tell she’s coldly furious, with the mage if nothing else. Yennefer is careless with people, but she doesn’t break them for sport. 

“Can you make him forget?” Geralt asks

“Probably,” Yennefer says. “But I might make him forget you, as well, or how to play the lute, or what fingers are for.” She sighs. “The human mind isn’t as simple as the body. Everything’s mixed together, messy. It’s too big a risk.” 

“Hmmm,” says Geralt. 

“You could try talking to him,” Yennefer suggests. Her tone is light, but not entirely kind. “With words. Rather than just knocking him out and trying to find a magical solution to things like you usually do.”

“I have talked to him,” Geralt mutters. 

She looks sceptical. “Really. What have you said?”

He explains about the things he reminded Jaskier of, and then, haltingly, about the apology. Yennefer raises an eyebrow at him. Geralt remembers why he went away in the first place. 

“What,” he says, only a little defensively. 

“Basically,” she says, “for the last day, you’ve moved between telling him things he already knows and telling him things he desperately wants to hear. And you’re surprised that he thinks none of this is real?” 

Geralt thinks about this for a minute or two. “Fuck,” he says, at last, with feeling. 

“If you want my advice,” Yennefer says, “and clearly you need it, you’ll find something to tell him that only you know, and he couldn’t predict. No spell or mimicry or insanity can encompass the whole of a man’s experience, Geralt. You’ll need to find a way to convince him of that.” She draws a portal in the middle of the cabin. “Which I’m afraid, dear witcher, means you had better get good at talking, and fast.” She looks at him again and the hard edge softens slightly. “Call when he’s ready to travel,” she says. “So you don’t have to go the long way round.”

When she’s gone, Geralt slumps into the chair. He wishes he had her confidence that Jaskier will want to stay, when he’s healed some. The bard is still under. He has about an hour or so to figure out what the hell he’s going to do now. 

When Jaskier comes round, Geralt has half the makings of a plan, which Jaskier obviously throws out of kilter immediately by glaring at him and announcing that he needs to go. 

“You can’t leave,” Geralt says. “It’s not safe out there.” 

Jaskier rolls his eye. It looks painful. “Not leave,” he says. “You know. Um. _Go_.”

“Oh,” Geralt says. “Right.” He roots around in the pack for the clothes he took from the camp, hands them over, then turns his back so Jaskier can get dressed. 

“The modesty’s new,” Jaskier says, thoughtfully, as if he’s still weighing up the evidence about Geralt’s reality or otherwise. “The clothes aren’t. Ugh. Not a fantasy, then, I’d have dreamed up something far better…”

He stands, shakily, and lets Geralt support him as he limps to the door and out onto the porch, where he stops for a while, seemingly taken by the view. 

“Not Novigrad outside,” he says eventually. 

“Not Novigrad at all,” Geralt says. “We’re not that far north.” 

Jaskier leans on the side of the cabin, makes his way to the far edge of the porch to do his business and Geralt looks away again. “I was in Lyria,” he says after a while. “Aiming to outrun the war, before it caught up with me.”

“I’m sorry,” Geralt says, and Jaskier sighs, limps back towards the door. 

“So you keep saying.” 

“Hmm,” Geralt mutters, and helps Jaskier back inside and to the bed, trying not to worry over the exhaustion in his voice, the way he’s trembling. “It’s good business for witchers, war,” he says, sitting down on the floor once Jaskier’s settled, his back to the bed so he doesn’t have to look at the resignation in Jaskier’s face, the disbelief. “More bodies mean more necrophages. And there’s always fighting, somewhere. When I first set out on the Path I used to follow the wars.” 

There’s a long silence. He was hoping Jaskier would say something, but the quiet continues so Geralt breaks it. “I got tired of it, in the end,” he says. “Decades went by with people fighting over the same small things, when they were all going to die anyway. So I thought, fuck it, and went back to the villages, stopped bothering with the politics. If you kill a drowner, at least you’re saving lives, not tidying up after the dead.” He smiles to himself, remembers the winter when he announced this to Eskel and Vesemir, who laughed at his pretension to heroism. “Master Vesemir told me I was a fool, and he was right, I suppose; people were no more grateful to have a monster killed than they were when I cleared the battlefields.”

Jaskier shifts; Geralt can tell he’s caught his attention. The bard does love a story, and Geralt’s always been sparing with them. Whether he thinks this is real or no, he’s not going to pass up the opportunity to ask questions. 

“Master Vesemir?” Jaskier says, eventually. 

“Sword master,” Geralt tells him. “One of the oldest witchers, one of the few who survived. He stays at the fortress mostly. I see him, some winters.” 

“There’s a _fortress_ ,” Jaskier hisses. Geralt can almost hear the song he’s started composing.

“You didn’t know about that?” 

“I thought it was a legend!” Jaskier says, outraged. “You mean to tell me there’s an actual witcher fortress?”

“Where did you think we trained?” Geralt asks him, reasonably. 

“I don’t know! Why would I know? It’s not like you ever talked about it.” He’s so cross, Geralt doesn’t think he noticed the slip, the _you_. 

“Well,” Geralt says, “we trained at a fortress. I’m not saying where. It’s a long way north of here, though. Bloody freezing, and mostly empty, these days. I spend winter there, sometimes.” 

“But you’re not there now,” Jaskier says. 

“No,” Geralt says. He considers mentioning Ciri, but if the Nilfgaard soldiers interrogated Jaskier about her, then it’ll only make him think it’s a trap again. “Eskel might be. He started on the Path same time I did. There aren’t many of us left, to visit, but we try. Keep Vesemir company. I think he misses the days of terrifying his students.” 

“I wish I had my lute,” Jaskier says. Geralt twists round to look at him. He’s lying on his back, fingers plucking at the furs. “I don’t know what they did with it. Probably still by the side of the road where they jumped me.” He swipes a hand over his face. 

Not surprising to see him mourn it, Geralt thinks, he loved that damn instrument more than he ever cared for himself. He feels restless, suddenly. Too much talking; thinking of the empty halls of Kaer Morhen, the ghosts of the boys who roamed it, the ones he knew before the Trials silenced them, silenced him. He can taste Jaskier’s grief, and it’s echoing inside him. 

He stands. “I should fetch water,” he says. “We’re low. There’s a stream not far off. I won’t be long. Don’t go anywhere.” 

“Where the fuck would I go?” Jaskier asks. 

“Hmmm,” Geralt says. He goes back to his pack to fetch what he’s looking for. “Take this.” He reaches for the dagger in his belt – silver – and hands it over, along with the xenovox. “Don’t do anything stupid. If anyone who isn’t me comes inside, stab them and call for Yennefer; she’ll hear it through this.” 

Jaskier turns the dagger over in his hands, tucks the xenovox under the furs. “ _Yennefer_ ,” he says, disgust dripping from his tongue.

“We’re not…” Geralt pauses. “ Look. I don’t think anyone followed us. But in case.” 

“Stab, call,” Jaskier says. “All right, figment. Whatever you say.” 

Geralt sighs. “I’m real,” he says again, leaning over to touch Jaskier’s hand before he goes. “I’ll be back soon.” 

He can’t quite read the expression on Jaskier’s face. But he doesn’t think it’s wholly untrusting. 

It takes perhaps fifteen minutes to fetch the water. He makes sure Roach has enough food in reach, first, lets her nuzzle at his hair for a minute or so. There’s the sharp bite in the air that promises snow again, soon. The whole world, sky and ground both, is grey and flat. They should travel soon, Geralt thinks. Before the storm breaks. 

The stream is half a mile distant, still running. He fills the bucket and then dips his hands into the freezing water, leaves them there till they go numb. As he walks back the blood returns to his fingers, needling and sore. He thinks about touching Jaskier, how his touch is unwelcome now. He thinks about introducing Jaskier to Ciri, how much trouble they’d get into. He needs to find a way to keep them both safe and he doesn’t feel entirely equal to the task. 

He’s all the way back to the porch when something wrong brushes against him; a trail of ripeness and rot on his hand. He drops the water, reaches for the sword he’s not carrying. He can’t move. Next to him, the pale decaying features of a doppler shudder into his mirror image. He snarls and rushes forward but he’s caught. There’s a web encircling him, deadening his movement, his sound. 

Someone laughs and he thrashes. The woman steps forward out of nothing, a small, pleased smile on an otherwise smooth and uncaring face. “Witcher,” the mage says. “You took some finding.” She moves closer to him, stopping just outside whatever barrier is keeping him from ripping her throat out. “The augers said we should come this way but I hadn’t anticipated such a prize. Not till we found a drunk man in a tavern boasting that he’d been rescued by the gallant Geralt of Rivia come to save his travelling companion.”

Geralt closes his eyes. Fucking _stories_. He never seems able to outrun them. 

“And now here we are,” the mage says. Fringilla, Yennefer called her. She reeks of power and smugness; is entirely certain of victory. “Tell me where the princess is.” 

Geralt bares his teeth in answer. “You’re too scared to face me without wards,” he says. “How do you suppose you’ll get me talking?” 

Her smile widens and he punches at the air between them, feels the barrier soft and yet unyielding beneath his fist. “Who says I need you to do the talking?” she asks. She turns to nod at the doppler in his Geralt-skin and Geralt freezes, because of course. He’s a bonus, she wasn’t expecting to find him. She was expecting to find a bard she could torture, and now she’ll have the pleasure of doing it in front of him. 

“Jaskier!” he shouts, but he can tell there’s no point. The word reverberates against the solid air surrounding him, and he knows it hasn’t travelled. 

“Come and see,” the mage says. And in a shift he’s barely aware of they have moved inside the cabin, shockingly warm after the chill winter air outside. Jaskier is sitting crosslegged in front of the fire, wrapped in the fur from the bed, head in his hands. His muscles are trembling as he waits. He’s on edge, fight or flight, unresting. Geralt should never have left him alone. Not today, not ever. 

There’s a knock on the cabin door and Jaskier looks up sharply. From outside, the doppler calls, “It’s me.” Geralt winces at the sound of his own voice, the uninflected dull tone of it. 

“Come in then,” Jaskier calls back. “Not like I can stop you,” he mutters to himself, scowling. 

The doppler enters, and Jaskier looks away. “Forgot the water, did you?” 

“Roach is drinking,” it says. Geralt growls, lunges forward, for all the good it does. He was aware that they could skim the surface memory, but it’s something different to see this monster that looks like him laying claim to knowledge it has no right to. 

Beside him the mage laughs, sweet and low. 

“Lovely to know I still rank behind the horse,” Jaskier responds, glaring. The doppler pauses a moment, perhaps confused by the difference between how it knows Geralt feels about the bard, and how the bard is reacting to Geralt. They’re not smart, dopplers.

“We should travel soon,” the doppler says. “Before the storm breaks.” 

“Expecting me to trail along in your footsteps again, are you?” Jaskier asks. He hugs the furs around him more tightly. 

Fringilla murmurs, “oh, how he wishes he despised you. Did you know it’s all pretence? Did you know how he burns to be saved? There are so many things I could do to him, witcher. Perhaps I’ll have the creature cut his fingers off, one by one, and feed them to him. Perhaps I’ll have it take him face down in the snow while you watch. I think you’d like that.” 

“I’m going to kill you,” Geralt says. He will. If it takes the rest of his days. 

“You could end this in a heartbeat,” the mage says. “All you need to do is give up the girl.” 

It’s like grieving, Geralt thinks, for something you have but already know you’ll lose. Ciri or Jaskier. There is no lesser evil. 

“I thought we’d go together, yes,” says the doppler. Its voice is perfect. Gruff, but with a tinge of affection that most people wouldn’t notice. Jaskier would. 

“Make your bloody mind up,” Jaskier says. “Where would we go, then, if we went together?” He gets up, painfully, moves away from the doppler and retreats to the bed, like he’s giving the lie to any closeness between them. 

“Back to Cirilla, first,” the doppler says. It starts to follow Jaskier, as if it can’t help itself. Geralt can smell its rising lust, for pain, for whatever the mage will permit. “Then, somewhere safe.” 

Jaskier eases himself down on the bed, hands curled loose under the covers. “Kaer Morhen, perhaps,” he says, watching the doppler get nearer. “I’d like to meet your old teacher. What was his name again?”

The doppler blinks. Surface thoughts only, Geralt remembers, and feels a surge of love, of hope. 

“What?” it says. It takes another step forward. It’s right by the bed now, leaning over Jaskier who’s leaning back and looking up. 

“Wait—” Fringilla commands, her voice rising, but as she speaks Jaskier is already burying the silver dagger deep into the doppler’s throat. 

It staggers back as the red blood wells up and spills out, and then collapses almost gently onto the hard wooden floor, the dagger pointing up to the roof. 

For a moment no one moves. 

Then. “Fuck,” says Jaskier, “it should have changed, it should have changed, _Yennefer!_ ” he cries and Geralt realises that he’s holding the xenovox in his other hand. 

Fringilla snarls, a low thrum of magic building in the air, matched by the sharp slice of power as a portal opens and Yennefer of Vengeberg steps through. She’s wearing a loose shift, her hair down. She looks tired. Geralt has never, he thinks, been happier to see her, especially when she takes one look around and narrows her eyes without pausing to think, even to breathe. 

“Jaskier,” she says, “run.” 

The bard chokes, and runs, sliding through the blood on the floor and hurtling through the door. It slams behind him and Yennefer says, “Fringilla, I know you’re there. Show yourself.” 

Geralt feels the pressure in the air change, and Fringilla moves around him to face Yennefer. He tests the air around him, feels the bonds holding. Yennefer tilts her head to one side, lets her eyes fill with contempt. “I didn’t think you needed to resort to conjuring tricks and beasts,” she says. “Though I suppose you’ve always been lazy.”

Fringilla moves her hands sharply and Yennefer steps back in reaction. A thin trickle of blood oozes from her nose. “Nice,” she says. “I almost felt that.” 

“Not so bold, are you,” the mage spits, “without your rectoress at your side to lie that you had any talent at all, pig girl.” 

“It must hurt so badly,” Yennefer says, “that someone born twisted in a barn has more chaos in her little finger than a beautiful, privileged, rich daughter of nobility has in her entire body.” She mouths something and Fringilla flinches, her hands dropping to her side. 

Geralt feels the wards around him flex a little. He moves, slowly, like he’s hobbled, edging round the walls towards the fallen figure of… Well. Himself. He can feel the battle raging at his side, for all that neither woman moves; the testing of their power as the blows are deflected, the energy pouring out of both of them. 

He feels it the moment Fringilla no longer has the strength to split her attention and the invisible prison around him starts to break. He rips at it, fingers bleeding on cracks in the air, until he’s free. He leans down and wrenches the dagger from the doppler’s throat. Silver for monsters. It’s apt. 

He throws it true, striking into the mage’s back just where her heart should be. 

For a moment nothing happens. Then there’s a clap of thunder inside the cabin as her power breaks loose of her control, and she falls, softly, almost silently.

Yennefer staggers, and Geralt reaches her in an instant. She leans in for a moment then pushes him away, roughly, and sits back on the bed. The cabin floor is wet with blood; it looks like a slaughterhouse, which isn’t too far wrong. Geralt winces at the smell. 

“I’ve got this,” Yennefer says. “Go fetch your idiot.”

“He’s not an idiot,” Geralt growls. “He knew to call you, didn’t he?” 

Yennefer raises an eyebrow at him. “He also ran off into the snow barefoot,” she points out, “but I’ll allow that there were extenuating circumstances.” 

“Fuck,” Geralt swears, and goes. 

Outside, the snow has started falling. He supposes that it’s only been a half hour or so since he went to fetch water, for all it feels like longer. His silver sword is gone from his pack; more worryingly, so is Roach. Geralt’s caught between pleasure that Jaskier fled in the smartest way possible, and fear that he won’t be able to catch up with them, that Jaskier will come to harm, snowblind and panicked and freezing as he must be.

Roach’s tracks are still visible, though filling up fast. Geralt sets off running. 

Luckily, or stupidly, Jaskier hasn’t gone far. He’s slumped over Roach less than a mile distant, breath heavy on the air, one hand clenched in Roach’s mane, one hand holding the silver sword. Geralt slows, approaches warily, unsure whether Jaskier stopped to wait, or to ambush, or simply when he ran out of energy. 

Geralt says his name, softly, and he jolts to sitting, squinting into the white. He lifts the sword, and though his whole arm is trembling, the weapon is reasonably steady. Geralt recognises the warmth in himself as a strange kind of pride. Jaskier’s hurt, and exhausted, and half out of his mind, but he hasn’t given up. He always knew the bard was a stubborn fool, but he never let himself see the strength in that before. 

“Oh,” Jaskier breathes when Geralt comes near enough to be seen. “I guess it didn’t take. No matter. I killed you once before, I can do it as many times as you like.” His words mingle despair with resolution, and Geralt needs this to end now, immediately. 

He brings his arms out to his sides, shows his empty hands as he steps closer. “My sword master was called Vesemir,” he says, keeping his voice soft but letting it carry. “He’ll be at Kaer Morhen, overwintering; Lambert and Eskel too probably, I haven’t seen either of them in a few years but that’s what they usually do.” He moves forward again. “I’ll take you there, sometime, if you want, but it’s not a kind place. The moat is full of bones.” 

Slowly, Jaskier lowers the sword. “Only you,” he says, “would try and reassure me with the most macabre detail you could think of.” His whole body is shaking, the trembling reaching into his voice, and Geralt reaches him just in time to steady him on the horse, to take the sword from his icy hand before he drops it.

He lets Jaskier sway there for a moment or two, waits for the sour fear smell to dissipate. “It’s over,” he promises him. “All right?”

Jaskier sniffs, wipes an arm roughly over his face, and says, “then for gods’ sakes let’s go back inside before I freeze to death. It might be romantic but it’s fucking cold.”

Geralt smiles a little, because this is the first time he’s really heard Jaskier sounding like Jaskier since this whole shitstorm started. There’s a lightness to the tone he didn’t even realise was missing. He whistles to Roach, and they turn back towards the cabin. 

He keeps one hand wrapped round Jaskier’s as they walk. Just in case. 

When they reach the cabin again, Jaskier’s too cold to move; Geralt lifts him off the horse and carries him back inside, ignoring his outraged squawk. Yennefer’s sitting at the table. She’s got rid of the blood, but left the two bodies lying side by side, and he glares at her briefly until he hears Jaskier’s breath hitch, and he thinks he might understand.

Jaskier kicks at him a bit, and then lets Geralt lower him gently till he’s kneeling on the floor, gazing at the dead form of the creature he killed. He’s still leaning back against Geralt’s legs, and Geralt rests his hands on his shoulders, holding him steady. 

He listens to Jaskier breathe, and then he listens to him cry, his shoulders heaving under Geralt’s hands. 

It doesn’t last long. When the sobs subside Yennefer says, “they don’t change back when you kill them so quickly. But they do react to silver – look.” She gets up, kneels down next to him, and presses the dagger against the other Geralt’s flesh, so Jaskier can see it blister. “Next time you’ll know to test.” She hesitates a moment. “The woman is called Fringilla. We studied together. I always thought she was a cow, even before she allied with Nilfgaard and killed dozens of us at Sodden. She would have carried on murdering and breaking and ruining people; I’m grateful to you both for putting an end to it.” 

Geralt’s not sure he understands what she’s doing, but then he’s never felt guilty about killing monsters. If you’re not used to it, maybe it’s harder. 

“Seen enough?” Yennefer asks, and when Jaskier nods she lifts her hands and mutters something, and the bodies are gone like they were never there at all. Just the silver dagger, resting where it fell. Jaskier presses further back into Geralt, and reaches up to pat his hand, like Geralt is the one that needs reassurance. 

“Remind me to never get on your bad side, witch,” Jaskier says. 

“Too late, bard,” Yennefer says, but there’s an edge of fondness to it, and Geralt has to close his eyes against how normal this feels, like he’s suddenly in a world where he never fucked it all up. 

After a minute or two more, Geralt helps Jaskier stand and limp back over to the bed, lets him wrap himself back into the furs while he checks to make sure that none of his wounds have re-opened. He can hear Yennefer moving around, gathering things together, and remembers that they haven’t actually had this conversation yet. 

“Yennefer,” he says, “can you give us a minute?”

She huffs, gently, then goes outside. Geralt looks at Jaskier. The black eye is healing, he can see a glimmer of blue above the too-sharp cheekbones. If they’d never met – if he’d never left—

“Oh, stop it,” Jaskier says, “I can feel you beating yourself up from here; you look even more constipated than usual.” 

“How did you know it wasn’t me?” Geralt asks. It suddenly feels crucial, the fact that Jaskier could tell. 

Jaskier looks away, as if searching to understand it himself. “It was talking about the future,” he says. “About the princess. You hadn’t, not in two days. You were so focussed on now. On… me. And so I thought. Maybe. And then… it didn’t move right.”

“What?”

“You move like you want to take up less space than you do,” Jaskier says. “It didn’t. It moved like it loved being that powerful. Like it couldn’t wait to hurt something. And then I knew. For all you are fucking terrible at avoiding it, you never actually _want_ to hurt anybody.” 

It’s Geralt’s turn to look away. Jaskier sighs. “We don’t need to speak of it,” he says. “The past, the future. Let’s just… leave it.” 

That would be easy, Geralt supposes. But not right. “Jaskier,” he says. 

“Geralt,” Jaskier says, lifting an eyebrow. 

“I would,” Geralt says. “If you. Will you come?” 

“Mmmm,” Jaskier says. “Are you sure you want my curse upon your life again?” He looks a bit like he’s joking, a bit like he’s still scared of the answer. “You never apologised for that, after all.” 

“I apologised,” Geralt protests. 

“But at the time I thought you were either wish fulfillment or some weird magical manipulation, so it doesn’t count,” Jaskier tells him. He’s not meeting Geralt’s eyes again. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. It doesn’t hurt as much this time, and he breathes, and reaches for Jaskier’s hands. “Jaskier, I’m sorry. I didn’t let myself think about it for months because if I thought about it I’d realise I’d made the biggest mistake in my life.” 

“Mmmm,” Jaskier says again. “Bigger than the Child Surprise? And the djinn? Neither of which I was in any way responsible for?” 

“ _Yes_ ,” Geralt says. He can tell from the slight shake in Jaskier’s voice that he’s still not entirely convinced all this is happening. He’s getting there. But… weeks, it must have been, in the cold and the dark of that cage while his body ached and his mind played tricks on him. He’s not going to trust the world right away. “I’ll keep on saying it, if it helps.”

“I wouldn’t want you to break anything,” Jaskier says, and now he’s smiling, just a little. “Besides, martyrdom doesn’t suit you that well, for all you keep throwing yourself at it.”

Geralt lifts Jaskier’s chin so he can see his face properly. “Will you come?” he asks.

“I suppose I have no other pressing engagements,” Jaskier says.


End file.
